Genetics
My partner calls me a flamingo. I lift a leg and flush pink;
pink: the color of my grandmother’s
bathroom where she decked herself out
before a show. She was a burlesque dancer,
or so I imagine. And so, I imagine her fanning her wings
in the mirror, spreading fuchsias,
magentas, and violets—even into heaven.
From heaven, my grandmother texts me:
I will visit you every five days. From earth, I reply:
bring your sunscreen and pretzels. What I don’t ask:
how fast did your motorcycle go?
Did the neighbors call the cops
when you broke into their pool to go
skinny dipping that late April evening?
A late April evening, electric networks
of fireflies streak the sky. By September, ticks
breed in dead leaves. My tics breed in my family tree:
nervousness passed along like sorrow,
like a programmed language from
generation to generation. Generation,
meaning bring forth. Tics, anxiety, OCD—
diagnoses slow step through the decades. Decades
of debates about nature or nurture. Is this why
my grandmother never wanted to be
a mother? Not motherly by nature,
she tucked her fears and her loneliness away
and sashayed across the stage. On stage,
she giggled, gossiped, and made a million friends.
A million friends are what flamingos also crave.
Social creatures, they feast on algae
and shrimp until they blush with delight.
Blush with delight, my grandmother instructs me,
not nerves. This is why my partner calls me
a flamingo: it is her wish for me.
It is also my grandmother’s
as she watches my feathers morph from
gray to pink. I try, as she had, to keep panic at bay.
On one leg, the future balances: flushed, feathered, and fragile.
pink: the color of my grandmother’s
bathroom where she decked herself out
before a show. She was a burlesque dancer,
or so I imagine. And so, I imagine her fanning her wings
in the mirror, spreading fuchsias,
magentas, and violets—even into heaven.
From heaven, my grandmother texts me:
I will visit you every five days. From earth, I reply:
bring your sunscreen and pretzels. What I don’t ask:
how fast did your motorcycle go?
Did the neighbors call the cops
when you broke into their pool to go
skinny dipping that late April evening?
A late April evening, electric networks
of fireflies streak the sky. By September, ticks
breed in dead leaves. My tics breed in my family tree:
nervousness passed along like sorrow,
like a programmed language from
generation to generation. Generation,
meaning bring forth. Tics, anxiety, OCD—
diagnoses slow step through the decades. Decades
of debates about nature or nurture. Is this why
my grandmother never wanted to be
a mother? Not motherly by nature,
she tucked her fears and her loneliness away
and sashayed across the stage. On stage,
she giggled, gossiped, and made a million friends.
A million friends are what flamingos also crave.
Social creatures, they feast on algae
and shrimp until they blush with delight.
Blush with delight, my grandmother instructs me,
not nerves. This is why my partner calls me
a flamingo: it is her wish for me.
It is also my grandmother’s
as she watches my feathers morph from
gray to pink. I try, as she had, to keep panic at bay.
On one leg, the future balances: flushed, feathered, and fragile.
May 2024
Shannon K. Winston’s book, The Girl Who Talked to Paintings (Glass Lyre Press), was published in 2021. Her individual poems have appeared in Bracken, Cider Press Review, On the Seawall, RHINO Poetry, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and lives in Bloomington, IN.
Art: Umbellularia Californica by Kat Cervantes